Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day is the UK equivalent of the US Memorial Day. It is observed every year on November 11th, and at 11am on this day, everyone is asked to observe a two minute silence to reflect on those who have given the ultimate sacrifice in past wars. In addition, November is poppy month. And everyone around here wears poppies...young, old, hipsters, yuppies...everyone. As a little side note, the factory that makes all the poppies for the entire world is right here in Richmond, just down the road from where we live!

Why Poppies?
Poppies flourish as weeds in grain fields. Their seeds can germinate for years until the topsoil is stirred up just enough to allow light to filter through to the seeds and begin their growth. War, with its many bombs, artillery shells, and corruption of land, disturbs the soil, and allows the poppy flowers to flourish in war ravaged regions. It was a Canadian doctor serving in WWI, Colonel John McCrae, who penned the famous poppy poem "In Flander's Fields" while remembering his comrade who had been killed in battle. As he stared at his friend's grave and the destroyed, muddy land around him, he saw spots of red poppies blowing in the breeze. A kind of symbol of life in a sea of death. I'll post the poem at the end of this post.

My Thoughts
I really feel that people over here remember more. In the US, we see Memorial Day as a day off work and a good excuse to BBQ and have a party. Perhaps it's because people here can see the effects of war. Unless one has had the opportunity to explore abroad, I doubt anyone has seen a real bomb crater. In Richmond Park, just up the road from us, I jog past bomb craters from WWII. At the Richmond Golf Club, there are framed rules from that time period explaining proper etiquette when encountering a ball hit into a crater or next to shrapnel, or how to resume the game after an air raid siren has blown. Unexploded bombs are still being recovered from the Thames River and are sometimes unearthed during building excavations. I had the chance to tour the Normandy D-Day beaches with my parents in June. What a poignant and humbling experience to stand on the shores of Omaha beach. I looked toward land with my back to the sea. I looked at concrete German bunkers still hidden in the hillside. I tried to imagine what it must have felt like for the thousands of soldiers landing there being met with gunfire and the ravages of a world at war. It felt almost wrong to stand on sand that was once stained with blood. But then, on top of the hill, sits the American Cemetery, containing the bodies of 9,387 US soldiers, most of whom were killed during the Normandy landing. The cemetery is a reminder that those people died so we could stand on that sand and enjoy the beauty of the peaceful surf and the feeling of the gentle breeze.

I have been guilty of not remembering properly in the past. I feel fortunate that I have never encountered a 20 foot bomb crater on American soil or driven past small plots of cemeteries with the bodies of foreign soldiers. It did take me seeing things first-hand to realize just how horrible and recent WWII was. Please remember. Not just on Memorial Day, but everyday.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

In Flanders field the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.
~~By Major John McCrae, May 1915.~~